SPRINGFIELD, Mass. -- A 32-year fund drive ended Saturday with the official opening of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
The $650,000 building on the campus of Springfield College is only a few miles from the spot where the late Dr. James Naismith invented the game of basketball 77 years ago.
A featured display in the new shrine are the original 13 rules for his new game written down by Naismith and posted on a gym door while a janitor nailed up bottomless peach baskets for the first basketball session.
The rules, extended and revised countless times, called for the baskets to be nailed to a track balcony around the Winchester YMCA gym at 10 feet, the same height still employed today in basketball.
